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Synthetic controls reveal hurricane effects on urban bee biodiversity from iNaturalist data

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Combining participatory science data with synthetic control methods enables stronger causal inference about the drivers of urban biodiversity from observational datasets. Applying this framework to assess the effect of Hurricane Ida on bee observations in Philadelphia revealed a 15.5–20.9% decline that conventional ecological analyses failed to detect.

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Fig. 1: Synthetic controls for participatory science data.
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References

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This is a summary of: Kaiser, A. et al. Synthetic control methods enable stronger causal inference using participatory science data in cities. Nat. Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03084-4 (2026).

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Synthetic controls reveal hurricane effects on urban bee biodiversity from iNaturalist data.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03085-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03085-3

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